Page 20 of After the Fall

Don’t get ahead of yourself, I thought. Harper was special and there was a reason we were drawn to each other, but wehad many obstacles to overcome before I could put a ring on her finger.

Sasquatches don’t do marriage. We don’t have to. Fated mates are just that, fated. And nothing can tear a pair of us apart once we’ve found each other. But Harper and I were going to have to live in Seattle, and put forward a somewhat normal façade, and that meant all the things that were important to humans. Things like weddings and rings. I didn’t care about any of it, but I would do it all, even throw a goddamn garter belt, for Harper.

“Did you stop her?” I followed Atticus into the house and Tank locked the door behind us.

“Of course I stopped her.” Tank had been a grouch all his life, but in the last year, he’d taken his irritability to the next level. “I follow orders.” It was a knock at Harper, but I let it slide. “She spent the afternoon in the greenhouse with Tim. I hope that’s approved.”

I nodded. “She used to work at a plant nursery. Maybe I’ll ask Tim if he needs some help out there.” I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it sooner. Until The Seattle Sun had laid off all its reporters, Harper had been paid pennies. Before her promotion to the nature column, she’d had to supplement her income with a part time job at the nursery, and I got the feeling that she’d liked the nursery job better than writing for that paper.

“She’s going to work for us?” His words dripped with sarcasm.

“Enough, Tank. This is all new territory for everyone. You need to start treating Harper like one of the family.”

“Fine. Then the greenhouse is the perfect place to stick her, far away from the rest of us. Tim seems to like her.”

That wasn’t a huge feat. Tim liked everyone. But it helped to know that Harper had at least one person on the property thatdidn’t want to serve her a giant steaming cup of forgetting serum tea.

As long as I was in charge, Harper was safe from my own kind, at least the North American contingent. I made a mental note to tell Harper never to eat or drink anything given to her by one of Valentina’s crew. Hopefully, she knew that already. But Harper was as equally naïve as she was brilliant.

“Speaking of Harper, where is she now?”

“She’s camped out in your office. I hope that you locked up anything sensitive.”

“Tank,” I growled.

“Sorry.” He held up his hands. “Family. Right. Now are you going to tell me what’s going on with that sack of bones Atticus just took to the basement?”

Being home meant being near Harper, and all I wanted to do was rush up to the office and bend her over the desk. I sniffed the air, the vanilla of her shampoo now a part of the house. I loved smelling her when I came home, but it also made me horny as hell.

I cleared my throat, wiping the image of my cock spreading Harper’s creamy thighs wide. “We set traps for Joe Davis and caught that guy instead.”

Tank’s brow furrowed. “Why did you bring him here?”

Rolling up my sleeves, Tank and I descended the curved staircase into the basement into the room we’d set up as a theater. A projection screen took up one wall, and overstuffed sofas and recliners with cup holders were arranged for family movie nights. But we’d never used it. Not once.

Atticus dropped the man onto a recliner. His head lolled and his eyelids flickered a couple of times before opening wide. He scanned the room and then struggled against his restraints. Atticus rested his hand on the man’s shoulders. “Relax.”

“Wyatt?” Harper’s voice called from the top of the stairs. “Are you down there?”

“Tell her to wait for me upstairs.” I pointed at Tank.

He rolled his eyes and then took the stairs two at a time.

“Why can’t I go down there? You may have stopped me from leaving, but Wyatt told me to treat this house like my own. Now get out of the way.” Harper’s voice sounded from the hallway.

Atticus widened his eyes and jerked his head toward the action at the top of the stairs, indicating that I needed to step in.

“I’ll handle it,” I grumbled and headed upstairs.

Tank stood on the landing, each hand pressed against the wall, stopping Harper from passing. “It’s okay, Tank. Stand down.”

He stepped aside and I passed him, taking Harper’s hand in mine, leading her away from the basement. She resisted, and I had to tug her to get her into the kitchen.

“What’s going on down there?” she asked nervously.

I sighed. I didn’t want to lie to Harper. “We found—”

“My dad?” She tried to rush past me, but I grabbed her arm.

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